Forty-eight years ago, my husband and I honeymooned in a rugged log cabin tucked beside a northern Wisconsin lake. It had log walls, one cozy bedroom, a single bathroom, and a quiet magic that made it feel much bigger. We…
While hiking along the Wisconsin River, I see raccoon tracks. They’re distinctive because they’re shaped like human hands. I’m near the same ridge where, earlier in the spring, I heard the frantic cries of a baby raccoon in distress. I…
The sun drops low in the sky over the lake and casts a golden glow on my trunk and limbs. They are brittle now. My sap has stopped flowing, and the end is near. The years of harsh northern Wisconsin…
A few weeks ago, I was zipping along on the interstate in the early morning darkness, smiling to myself because I had everything in control. Lake Geneva’s book festival would allow me to sell my books and meet fellow authors…
My phone interview with Jerry Apps last week was not only enlightening, but emotional. The 87-year-old is the author of over 40 books. He’s also the amazing but humble star in many PBS documentaries about the land and farming in…
As a child, and okay, as an adult, too, I happily read Robert Newton Peck’s Soup books. His ability to describe his characters such as Soup’s nemesis, Janice Riker, is peachy. “She was the biggest and strongest and meanest kid…
The beauty of the world of literature is that it allows you to live other lives. I’ve been an attractive 17-year-old red-head whose many adventures include solving the mystery of who’s trying to harm Fortune, the racehorse on my aunt’s…
Greetings fellow story lovers, I felt it again yesterday while hiking–the heartbeat of the woods. Does the pulse I feel come from all the creatures watching as I walk down their sun-dappled trails, or from all the past creatures that…
Greetings fellow story lovers, Poet Ted Kooser inspired my muse with the following poem. Lobocraspis Griseifusa This is the tiny moth who lives on tears, who drinks like a deer at the gleaming pool at the edge of the…
Greetings fellow story lovers, What if . . . are magic words to writers and story tellers. What if an animal attraction with over 100 live reptiles including crocodiles, unusual albino iguanos, and the world’s largest snake caught on fire?…